But if he's going to feel guilty, it's not going to be about the
money he has, but about the money he spends.

When people say, Mr. Gates, you should feel guilty because you
have so much money. Well, it’s not that I have money, if I’m
supposed to feel guilty [about something], it's my consumption.

He didn't sound like he felt guilty about any of it, and for good
reason. He donates billions of dollars to charity, committing $38
billion to his charitable foundation and encouraging other
billionaires to donate most of their money to charity, too,
through a program called The
Giving Pledge.

But for Gates, it's not just about donating his money. He's
putting his considerably brilliant mind to the task of solving
some of the world's toughest problems like poverty, childhood
mortality, clean water, and improved education.

And he reports a lot of progress on that. Gates thinks that in
about 20 years, there will be no third-world countries. In his
annual letter to his
foundation he wrote:

I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a
prediction. By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left
in the world. (I mean by our current definition of poor.) Almost
all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or
richer.

Interestingly, the discussion on guilt came up when Gates was
talking about the U.S. tax code and how it will need to change to
address changes in our workforce. Gates envisions a future where
software will do more jobs,
making it harder for people to find employment.

He thinks the government could encourage businesses to hire
workers if it stopped taxing people on their wages. Instead, he
thinks that it should tax them on how much they spend, an idea
called the
"progressive consumption tax."

To the people who say he should feel bad about his wealth, he
answers:

Consumption is what you care about. ... The idea that
consumption should be progressively taxed, I think that makes a
lot of sense.

Here's the portion of the interview where he talks about the
progressive consumption tax: